


Peaches

by tiggeryumyum



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Courtship, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiggeryumyum/pseuds/tiggeryumyum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin and Eren have been promised to each other since they were infants, but now the time has come to start courting, and Eren's getting nervous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowshroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshroom/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAREST FRIEND SNOWSHROOM, ur my blobfish ;____________; <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

By fourth grade, Eren Jaeger and Jean Kirstein have become experts in ducking little Armin Arlert.

Armin was still too young for schooling himself that year, and he would wait anxiously in his yard until the two of them passed with their book bags, resting his chin on the wooden fence. He'd run as fast as his little legs could go as soon as he caught sight of them, calling out to them – " _Eren! Jean!_ ", excited by the chance to tagalong, and crying outright if they told him to go home. 

They learned pretty quick that making little Armin cry was the quickest way to get a beating and an official sentence to babysit, so instead, they came up with tasks. Things that Armin couldn't hope to accomplish, being too young, too clumsy.

"The only ones allowed in our club have caught three horny toads," Jean would say, gravely, playing the impartial judge. He couldn't help it if Armin couldn't deliver the goods, and it was true, in a way. Eren had certainly caught at least three horny toads, and so had Jean.

This got rid of him for hours; Armin would pour his heart into the challenges, spend an entire afternoon by the river watching carefully for the toads, only going home for supper when his grandpa came out and grabbed him.

He never felt guilty about it at the time, finding it to be a suitably fair arrangement. But years later, Eren would think about little Armin sitting at the river bank, his toes curling in the mud, socks folded neatly into his shoes, eyes sharp and ready, waiting until the sun started to set, and feel so rotten his eyes would start to sting.

In ironic retrospect, Eren's favorite memory of Armin is probably the summer when the Reeves moved to town. They only stayed for a season, but their oldest son spent what little time he had with them making a sport of teasing Armin. 

Jean and Eren had passed the Armin's home, resigned to putting up with a full afternoon of his attention - except he wasn't in the yard. They were still celebrating their good fortune when they made it to the market, and saw Reeves kicking lightly at the back of Armin's knees, making him fall over, laughing when Armin would yelp and cry. 

Jean was the only one who got in trouble for pounding Reeves, but it was Eren who struck first, and hardest, wrestling him to the ground. Seeing Armin in tears because of someone else's cruelty and set fire in Eren, and Eren's dad told him two against one was never a fair fight, but he was pretty sure the rules were different for boys like Reeves, teasing boys like Armin, and he didn't care if he was wrong. 

After Jean got dragged off by his ear to see his mom, it was just Eren and Armin, and for some reason that didn't seem like that awful of an arrangement. He was patient with Armin, spending the rest of the day with the younger boy. He walked him down to the best part of the river, even showing Armin Eren and Jean's secret path. They rolled up their pant legs and spent the entire afternoon nabbing lizards, grabbing pointlessly after the occasional fish. There were still tear tracks on Armin's face, but he laughed every time he touched the slick, gummy flesh of a lizard, trying so hard to keep up with Eren, and for a while it was fun to be the one who would definitely win – everything with Jean was competition, and that was fun, but this was better in a different way. Teaching someone something, being gentle and patient instead of boastful and ruthless. Eren liked the excitement in Armin's face when he would praise him, he liked how Armin would rush to show him the tadpoles he had clenched in his hands, holding them away from his body and screaming with laughter for how they tickled his palms.

Eren thinks about that afternoon a lot, now.

Armin was his. In ways he didn't want as a child, but it had been impossible to deny, even then. He didn't want to be the person setting Armin's stars and moon then, but he was, and a scowl from him could make Armin's eyes water. It was a responsibility Eren had been carrying before he understood what it was.

He doesn't want to shed it now, not when Armin is finally starting to hold the same power for him.

Armin turned thirteen and his debut was last month, and now he's being courted, and the thought is itching at Eren, night and day. Last week, Sheriff Ackerman took Armin on a tour of her garden. It didn't mean anything, Eren is pretty sure, the sheriff already has three marriages and she makes a point of taking new debutants on ideal engagements, talking about how a respectful suitor ought to act. But if she _wanted_ to – 

Armin had actually been promised to Eren as long as either of them could remember, their marriage arranged when Armin was still a newborn and Eren was three. 

That didn't mean anything though. The Kirsteins had arranged for Jean to marry Erwin Smith, and look at Jean now. Living with Marco Bodt, a doctor that moved to town three months before Jean's debut. Jean was better for it, happier, but it was a reminder for Eren: nothing is set in stone. Anything could happen. Armin could pick anyone.

"What made you pick Marco? Instead of Erwin"

Jean shrugs. "I told you about Erwin, remember? His dates were boring as heck."

 _Heck._ Jean doesn't cuss anymore. Marco doesn't like it. 

At first, this made swearing an especially thrilling deviancy, and Eren and Jean both made a show of cussing, loudly, in as many combinations as they could come up with; it didn't matter if it made any kind of sense – _tit-fucker horse-cocking shit!!_ – until Marco would overhear and call Jean inside. Eren didn't know what happened in there, but Jean didn't come out for the rest of the day. But that was a few years ago, Marco isn't even in town, now. Jean just doesn't swear, and he actually focuses on the music sheet in front of him, eyes narrowed as his fingers press down with growing confidence on the keys of the grand piano. By the time Marco gets back, Jean will probably be able to perform it for him, and flush with pride that he did. 

Eren has never really understood their relationship and for a second he questions what he was really thinking, asking Jean for advice. 

"I didn't like Erwin cause he was trying to make me into something I wasn't," Jean says, suddenly, looking up from the keys.

"But that's what Marco did!" 

When Jean gets a rip in his good pants, Marco sits him down with a needle and thread and makes him mend it himself. It really cut down on their roughhousing. Erwin would sit Jean down in dinner parties that lasted hours, and fed him complicated, foreign dishes that bled murky shades when Jean would stab them with forks.

Jean shrugs. It's different, and Eren knows it, but he's not entirely sure why. This is probably the key: whatever made Marco different for Jean, that's the difference Eren needs to find, and be, for Armin. Eren thinks of the day they told Armin they were playing hide-and-go-seek and left him alone in a field looking for them for who knows how long until he gave up, and feels like a monster that's not fit to even look at him.

"Have you set a date to see him?" Jean asks, back to clumsily fumbling with a piece that Eren finally recognizes as Stokowski. 

"Tomorrow night."

"Isn't it something," Jean suddenly snickers. "We used to hide under decks to avoid him and now you're sweating at the chance of even seeing him."

"Yeah, I hadn't thought of that," Eren says flatly. He hasn't been able to think of it any _other_ way, to be honest. He's still little Armin Arlert to Eren, that hasn't changed at all. He just doesn't like that other people are starting to notice him now.

He's pacing now, and Jean openly laughs at him. "I don't know what you're so worked up about. He worships the ground you spit on."

"And what did I do with it! And what's he going to do now that he's got these old—fuckers chasing after him, worshiping him? You're lucky, Kirstein. You don't know what's like, sweating over this."

Jean just shrugs again. Eyes squinting, back to his piece. Eren had actually been hoping for a fight, he knows Jean's courting process had been nothing but a pain, and he was lucky for Marco, who was willing to take him on hayrides, to carnivals, inviting Eren along at times. He'd been an easy-going suitor, but Eren knows that's not the difference – there was something more that just treats and hayrides, even at the beginning, and that is what seduced Jean.

Marco had understood Jean. He saw the potential there, and he saw the parts that needed to be dusted off, spit shined and polished, and he knew he was the right one to do it. Erwin hadn't been particularly interested in understanding Jean as a hooligan or Jean as a reformed man, or the Jeans there would be in-between.

Armin doesn't need to be spit-shined though, he's already tempered, polished to perfection. Sweet as a peach and likely to bruise with rough-style handling. But he does need understanding.

And if that's the difference, it shouldn't be a problem. Eren knows Armin – well, logically he knows he must, he's known him his entire life, but in the last week he's morphed in Eren's head, into this mysterious, all powerful creature of mist, drifting from Eren's reach and laughing, finally finding men who never mocked him, never set him on impossible tasks, always respected him.

"Where are you taking him?" Jean asks.

Eren kicks at a chair leg, hands shoved in his pockets. He feels stupid saying it out loud. "The river."

"The river? The Johnston? They're still doing boat rides down that thing?"

"No, the one on the side of town – that one, you know, that path we used to walk down."

Jean snorts. "You're taking him hunting for tadpoles?"

Any other day, Eren would've laughed at the ribbing. 

"No," he just says, crossing his arms. The day after Armin's debut ball, after Eren's four dances – which was more than anyone else got, older men and teens eager to take Armin for a spin, pulling him from Eren's arms as soon as they got the chance – he went down to the river and started planning. There's a deck there, now, it took him two days to plan, a week and a half to build, and it's solid, overlooking what is really little more than a trickle of mud that had fascinated them so deeply as children. He's going to set up the table tomorrow, and he's already asked family friends – the Hoovers – to help with the meal. 

In all this time he hasn't really spoken to Armin. 

It's easier to fixate on building a date around Armin than to actually think about what he'll say to him. He's worried that in his silence, he's already lost him. He's worried that he never really had him. He's worried about everything he ever took for granted in regards to Armin, and on the day of his date, he changes his outfit twelve times before going to meet Armin at his door.

"Eren!" Armin says, smiling wide as soon as he opens the door.

"Hello," Eren says stiffly, feeling mildly constipated. He wants to offer his arm. At the same time, he's afraid of moving his arms. His grandpa is watching him from the front lobby, arms crossed, a glare that promises worse than death if Eren takes too many liberties with his grandson.

Armin frowns at Eren's expression. "What's the matter?"

"I—nothing. I'm just excited," Eren forces a smile, and Armin beams back, grabbing Eren's arm as they walk down the front path.

"I'm excited, too – I've been waiting to talk to you all month! Where have you been?"

He looks a little hurt, here, stiff-lipped, and a touch of annoyance that he's trying to hide. Eren feels a little more confident: he can read Armin's moods, possibly better than anyone.

"I've been busy. You know, planning."

"Planning?" 

"You'll see – so, what about these suitors? Any, uhm," Eren clears his throat. "Favorites?"

Armin rolls his eyes, laughing lightly. "Thomas only brought enough drink for himself, he expected me to bring my own – and Daz was two hours late! Grandpa would not allow me to see him, he had to come again the next day, and I think Grandpa had him clean out the stables in the meantime – but he was boring as he always is. Eren," he says suddenly. "Where are we going?"

They're leaving the developed areas of town, and Eren gives Armin a firmer tug, smiling, leading him toward the path. It's grown over somewhat in the passing years, but Eren had beaten the growth back in the last month, carrying out supplies, wood and nails and finally that table.

"Eren, no," Armin laughs, shaking his head as they walk down the path, catching on quickly, but his smile reaches his eyes, both arms wrapping around Eren's, now, and he knows immediately he made the right choice. 

Eren hadn't planned on saying anything once they made it there. All his speculation about this moment ended in the path on the way here, imagining Armin's face tight with disappointment, putting up with Eren's childish courting, saying nothing, because that would be the kindest thing. 

It's nothing like that, though, Armin seems genuinely impressed with the gazebo, which Eren tries to see with new eyes. It's small, especially with the table there, but there's more than enough room for two, which is all Eren had been thinking about. 

"So. I built this," Eren says needlessly, spreading his arms, half-heartedly displaying his workmanship. There are four lanterns, but it's not enough light, really. He should've planned for the afternoon but night seemed more romantic?

Armin walks up the steps, running his hand up the railing with a smile, bending to look where the pieces all connect, checking Eren's workmanship. "This is – a wedding present?"

"No! No, this is just for our date," Eren says. 

"Oh," Armin looks stricken. 

"Not that I don't want to—I'm not sure—“ Eren feels like he's choking on the words, and finds himself just barreling forward recklessly. “Do you still want me? Armin?" Armin just stares at him, looking confused, and Eren rushes on, "I've spent all month thinking about us, thinking about mistakes I made when we were kids, and thinking about those fuh— friggin' suitors, treating you how I should've been treating you, and how any sane man would pick them. But I wanted to make it up to you, I wanted tonight to be perfect. I want – "

Armin shakes his head, covering his eyes with one hand and Eren realizes after he starts speaking that he might be tearing up – his voice is thick, wobbling slightly. 

"I thought after the ball, after we danced, that you would come to me. And propose properly. But – I waited, all night, I waited on the stairs. You didn't come. You disappeared, all month, and the only thing I could think was that you didn't want me anymore – that you were giving me this time, to find someone new. To be kind."

Eren feels like a monster. "I just... keep leaving you waiting," he says.

Armin nods sharply, then finally removes his hand; his eyes are glistening slightly, but he's not crying. He's waiting, again, for something. Something from Eren and the second he realizes what it is, he surges forward – knocking over half of his meticulously planned meal.

Erwin probably would've chased him out of town for this kiss, it's anything but decent. He's got Armin backed against the side of the deck, anchoring his hands on Armin's ears and moans, unable to believe how _good_ Armin tastes, how _good_ he feels pressed up against him like this. When they pull back, Armin looks dazed, and young – lord, he's only fourteen, lips flushed pink and puffy from the kiss, eyes glazed slightly as he pants, blown away.

"It's a wedding present," Eren says. Really, it's whatever Armin wants it to be, Eren's going to set his watch, his moon and his sun by Armin's whims, he'll never be left wanting, or waiting, for anything anymore.


End file.
